The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface ofthings. We think that that is which appears to be.

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

Fame itself is but an epitaph; as late, as false, as true.

I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system, with time, and all that is madeand at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and float whither it would bear me.

A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.